Track and field standouts from Platte County, Park Hill and Park Hill South will take part in the 8th annual Meet of Champions on Wednesday, June 13 at Grain Valley High School.
The event starts at 7:15 p.m. in a Missouri vs. Kansas format. This year, a third team of former meet champions will also compete.
Best times/marks from sectional/regional or the state meet will be used to seed the races and field events.
A new event added this year will be the Kansas City Running Company 1,600-meter run for athletes between ninth and 11th grade and will start at 9:15 p.m.
Platte County will have athletes on both the girls and boys side.
Erin Straubel, an all-stater in the 3,200-meter, will join six Pirates on the boys side.
That list includes all-staters Jon Watts (three events this year and four last year) and Nick Bjustrom, a member of the Class 4 4x800-meter champion.
Other Platte County athletes will be Evan Edwards, Julian Palmore, Dakota Schmidt and Michael Smith.
Park Hill South will have an area-high 10 athletes.
On the boys side will be Eli Guzman, Ewan Frick, Drake Chandler-Gilliland, Melvin Walker, David Rouse and Saadique Perkins. Walker and Guzman were both part of all-state relay teams for the Panthers last month.
Emma Roth, Keely Danielsen, Marti Heit and Dymeria Guillory are Park Hill South’s girls selections. Roth, a Missouri signee, was a state-runner up and had three all-state medals, while Heit had a pair of all-state medals. Danielsen joined those two on the 4x800 relay team that was fifth in Class 5.
Park Hill will have five at the meet, headlined by recent signees Taiya Shelby and Jena Hahlbeck.
Shelby won a pair of state titles at the state meets, winning the 800-meter and part of the 4x400 team that repeated as Class 5 champions. She signed to run at Vanderbilt.
Hahlbeck, a Park signee, was on the 2017 4x400 championship.
Other Trojans in the meet are Grace Fink, Lexi Reneau and Sephora Koudou.
Missouri swept both team standings last year.
Kansas holds a 4-3 advantage on the girls side, while Missouri boys have won six of seven meets.
The cost for the ticket is $5.